Housing Project Slave Labor

[NYC]

Subject: The Village Voice CityState In 'Voluntary' Servitude

Published September 13 - 19, 2000
Towers & Tenements
by J.A. Lobbia

Tenants Vow to Boycott Lazio's Law
In 'Voluntary' Servitude

After slacking off for the latter part of summer, senatorial candidate
Rick Lazio went to work in earnest on Labor Day, hitting the campaign
trail by bopping around county fairs and barbecues in western New York.
While the republican congressman chose to rev up his campaign against
Hillary Rodham Clinton on the holiday set aside to honor workers,
public-housing tenants were stewing about his plan that will force them
to work for free or face eviction.

That choice is now a reality because of Lazio's claim to legislative
fame, the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act. Passed in 1998
and only now being implemented by public-housing authorities across the
nation, the law is considered by tenants and their advocates to be the
most regressive housing policy to come out of Washington yet. While many
of the bill's provisions will certainly hurt those who most need public
housing, giving preference to working families over the very poor and
forbidding the expansion of public housing stock, perhaps its most
punitive feature is the requirement that many public-housing residents
"volunteer" for eight hours of community service each month or face
eviction.

The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) has already developed plans
for implementing many parts of Lazio's law, some as long as a year ago.
But the community-service requirement so confounded the agency that it
was not until last month that it announced its plans for implementing
it. Public comment on the plans closed on September 5; NYCHA has until
mid October to review those comments and submit to the U.S. Department
of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) a plan for putting into effect
Lazio's law in New York City. While NYCHA must also send a copy of its
plan to the official body that represents its tenants, that group has
found the forced-labor provision so repugnant, it has refused to
participate in reviewing the policy.

"We voted 36 to 1 not to even deal with it," says Gerri Lamb, citywide
chairwoman of the council of presidents for NYCHA's Resident Advisory
Board (RAB). "We will boycott any kind of imposed community service."

Lamb fired off a sharply worded letter to HUD secretary Andrew Cuomo in
late June, saying that "virtually each and every resident feels
personally offended and deeply threatened by this surprising and highly
intrusive assault on our freedom and dignity." She called the policy
especially malicious toward African Americans, "a people well-versed in
the politics of forced labor," and concluded that there was nothing
voluntary about the service. "To us," she wrote, "it feels like
blackmail."

Lamb says Cuomo has not responded. Perhaps that's because, just as NYCHA
is following HUD's orders to put Lazio's law into practice, HUD is
obliged to implement the law that Congress passed. "Nobody likes this
law," says NYCHA spokesman Howard Marder. "Nobody." Lamb says the RAB is
about to undertake a postcard-writing campaign to Lazio, protesting the
policy. Lazio's office did not return calls.

Victor Bach, a housing analyst with the Community Service Society, which
advocates for impoverished people, says the power to ditch the required
work law lies with Lazio. But he doubts the congressman is interested in
modifying it.

"This law is loaded with ideological content that says that
public-housing residents are not contributing," says Bach. "We were told
by Lazio's staff" when the bill was being drafted "that it's time they
stop taking from the community and start putting something in. Now
they're being forced to volunteer. The semantics are certainly strange,
and the concept doesn't apply to others who get tremendous government
benefits, like mortgage tax deductions for homeowners or those who get
federally insured mortgages. It's unfair, unreasonable, and certainly
unprecedented."

Under Lazio's law, the failure of one member of a household to do
community service could put the whole family at risk for eviction.
Exempted would be tenants who are employed, in school, over 62,
disabled, or primary caretakers for the elderly or disabled. Welfare
recipients who are enrolled in the city's unpaid Work Experience Program
(WEP) would also be exempt. Marder could not say how many NYCHA tenants
would be exempted, but said nearly one-third are employed, about 62,000
are over 62 years old, and many are enrolled in WEP. NYCHA's proposed
community-service stints include working with tenant patrols, community
or senior centers, literacy programs, and local NYCHA management
offices.

"I think the housing authority really doesn't want to do this, and it is
not doing it in the most draconian way, but we haven't seen how it's
going to play out," says Judith Goldiner, a Legal Aid attorney who often
represents NYCHA tenants facing eviction. "I fear it could become
discretionary at the manager level, with some managers going after
people they just don't like. They're not setting out to do that, but I
think it's a logical consequence."

Goldiner worries about tenants who are between situations, like recent
graduates who are not yet employed, or those who are wrongly kicked off
welfare. She recently represented a woman who went on welfare after a
stroke cost her her job. She was subsequently attacked on the subway and
was in the hospital when welfare workers came for a required home visit,
so she sent her son to meet the workers. She was cut off anyway for
failing to be present during the home visit. Asks Goldiner, "Would a
woman in such a situation also get evicted if she doesn't then do
community service?"

Given the massive size of public housing in New York City, NYCHA makes
up 9 percent of all city rentals, and houses more than 535,000 people,
you'd think Hillary Clinton would seize the community-service
requirement as a campaign issue. "Public housing is so dense, it's like
a vertical election district," says Goldiner. "If she were smart, she'd
make it an issue. But I don't think public housing is on her radar
screen. And after all, her husband signed the bill, so there it is."

Tell us what you think. edi...@villagevoice.com

E-mail this story to a friend.

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

[big...@my-deja.com]

In article <Pine.GSO.3.96.100091...@walrus1.walrus.com>,

> THE VILLAGE VOICE IS VERY GOOD AT

TELLING THE WORKING POOR HOW THEY SHOULD FEEL ABOUT EVERYTHING,AND AGAIN
THEY ARE WRONG. I THINK IT'S TIME FOR SOME PEOPLE WHO LIVE HERE AT
QUEENSBRIDGE HOUSES TO GET OFF THEIR ASS AND GIVE SOMETHING BACK TO THE
COMMUNITY. I AM DISABLED ANDI WOULD BE EXEMPT, BUT I WOULD VOLUNTEER TO
PATROL OUR PROJECT OR TUTOR A CHILD IN THEIR SCHOOL WORK, I THINK THESE
LIBERAL LAWYERS WILL FIND SOMETHING WRONG IN THIS COMMUNITY SERVICE PROGRAM
NO MATTER HOW IT IS AMENDED.THESE ARE THE SAME PEOPLE WHO TELL MINORITIES
THAT THEY CAN'T BETTER THEMSELVES,THEY WOULD KEEP US ADDICTED TO GOVERNMENT
HANDOUTS SUCH AS WELFARE FOR THE REST OFOUR LIVES.IF CERTAIN PEOPLE HAD TO
WORK ON THE QUEENSBRIDGE GROUNDS ,HAD TO CLEAN AND PAINT OR PATROL THE
BUILDINGS THEN MAYBE THEY WOULD APRECIATE WHAT THE STAFF DOES FOR US EVERYDAY
AND MAYBE THEY WOULD LEARN TO KEEP QUEENSBRIGE HOUSES CLEAN,IS IT ASKING SO
MUCH FROM THEM TO TAKE SOME PRIDE IN WHERE THEY LIVE? I DON'T THINK SO, DO
YOU?.....